Some hand held and hand operated drain cleaning tools have a cable or snake coiled in a drum. A crank is attached to the drum to allow a user to rotate the drum about a support assembly from which a handle depends. The cable extends forwardly of the drum and is extended relative thereto for insertion into a drain to be cleaned and rotates with the drum so as to clear a blockage encountered in the drain. A user withdraws a length of the cable from the drum until a snag in a drain is reached and then a thumbscrew at the forward end of the drum is tightened against the cable so as to preclude unintended displacement of the cable into the drum as the cable is advanced. The drum is then held with one hand and rotated by the other while the user forces the cable into the drain at the same time. When the withdrawn length of the cable has been inserted into the drain, the thumb screw is loosened, the cable is held in place and the drum is withdrawn from the entrance to the drain to withdraw a further length of cable from the drum. The thumbscrew is again tightened and the operation is repeated to displace the newly extended length of the cable to the drain. When the drain cleaning operation is completed, the thumbscrew is loosened and the cable is manually pushed back into the drum by the user.
In some known hand augers, the hand support for holding the drum for rotation is a tubular support at the rear end of the drum and, in other support arrangements, such a tubular support is disposed forwardly of the drum and may include a pistol grip type handle extending laterally of the axis of rotation for supporting the drum.
Hand held and hand operated drain cleaning tools are desirable in that they are relatively lightweight, structurally simple, economical to manufacture, and, for all of these reasons, ideal for use in connection with light duty drain cleaning operations such as those encountered in a residence.